Teaser

A few shots from this weekend of April's upcoming pattern...

Worked in Linda's spectacular 50% camel/50% silk Westminster yarn. It has beads...

Tangible love

As in previous times of struggle for people I care about, I have responded to the personal events of the last week by grabbing yarn and needles and casting on. The act of knitting for someone else is never so weighty and meaningful as when you can't physically be there yourself.

Fyberspates Scrumptious (55% merino/45% silk) in a gorgeous deep dark cool red (Cherry), in the process of becoming Green the whole year round by Anna Yamamoto. I am enjoying the pattern except for the fact that the charts don't use the symbols I'm used to (and there's no key) so I keep having to go back and forth between the written directions and the chart to see what's going on. Thankfully there are written directions!

The yarn is definitely living up to it's name. I'm about halfway through the lace section now, and should be done by the end of the week so it can go off to it's new home. With much love.

FO: Cornflower Grace

Now that this baby has been delivered to the recipient, I can finally blog about it.

Pattern: Cinnamon Grace by Katie Harris
Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Sock Art Forest, 70% wool/30% Tencel, 400 yds/100 gr - this scarf used about 80 gr, so approximately 320 yds total.
Needles: US 3/3.25 mm circulars
Start/finish: 6 April - 9 April 2013.
Comments/modifications: This is a very nice pattern, despite some issues that I will discuss farther down. The center panel is knit from tip to tip, then you pick up stitches along the long side and knit the edging downwards.


There is a large increase in the number of stitches for the edging within the first couple of rows, giving it a bit of a ruffled effect.

The final dimensions were 76 inches long and 8 inches deep (including the ribbing) , making it long enough to wrap nicely around the neck.

I did have a couple of issues with the pattern, however. Some portions of the directions were very confusing on first (or second, or third) reading, but I was able to figure it out eventually. To be completely fair, this is a free pattern, so I don't expect tech editing, but some careful editing and a bit of clarification would have been very welcome.

My only other issue was that I expected the scarf to end up a bit wider - the pictures in the pattern show it worn more like a shawlette then a scarf, so I was expecting a slightly wider final project. I did work the ribbing a bit longer then called for, but if I knit this again, I will keep increasing on the center panel until it's wider.

An aside: The events of the past week have thrown me for a loop, having grown up in Boston, so that's the reason for prolonged blog silence. I am researching the charities available, but I plan to donate 100% of all sales of the Boston Toque (Ravelry link), and 50% of sales of the Travelling Hats ebook (Ravelry link) from now until 15 July to a charity focusing on the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings on 15 April. I'll have a decision on the charity, and more information on Monday, but if you feel inspired to go buy either the pattern or the ebook right away, feel free. And thank you!

When all you can do is pick up the needles

I've been knitting up a storm recently, but it hasn't been a particularly happy experience. A dear friend is dealing with her father's just-diagnosed late-stage metastatic cancer. We've been lucky enough to get to know her dad, Himself even more so then me, and the news about his cancer has been very difficult.

I don't set much store in prayer, but my immediate reaction to the news was “I must knit him something”. After consultation with the daughter, I decided to knit him a nice, warm jumper to ward off the post-chemo chills.

I did a bottom-up, saddle sleeve sweater all in one piece, á la Elizabeth Zimmerman – a technique I've wanted to try for a while. I did a simple 2x2 cable up each side and along the outside of the sleeve up to the collar. The yarn is Colorado Yarns Durango, a wool/acrylic/viscose blend I've had in stash for a looong time. The finished sweater is cozy and warm, easy to care for, and hopefully will help keep him comfortable and warm in the coming months.

After finishing that off, I knew I wanted to knit something for Mum as well.

This is Cinnamon Grace, and since that picture was taken, I've knit the border and started the cast off. Once I've got it blocked, I'll take some better pictures and give some details.

They have a hard road ahead, and I knit every stitch of these pieces with good thoughts and hope for them in what is statistically a pretty hopeless situation. I hope they'll wear these and feel us close to them, sending mojo and strength across the miles.

Warning:some patterns may be infectious and designated as biohazard

I usually avoid really popular patterns. I'm not exactly one to keep on top of the most popular patterns on Ravelry, and if something becomes really, really hot, my inclination is to avoid it like the plague. I'm just not that in to knitting something that everyone else is doing. In other words, I'm contrary and don't like bandwagons.

The thing is, sometimes those really, really popular patterns? They're popular for a reason. And everyone's knitting them for a reason. A really good reason. Cue Color Affection by Veera Valimaki. I first saw this shawl on the Yarn Harlot's blog at the beginning of the summer. Then they were everywhere. People were spending endless hours debating about color combinations, then vendors were selling pre-chosen sets so people didn't have to agonize over color choices (there are reasons why it takes a special kind of crazy to design Fair Isle sweaters...), and my general reaction was meh. I like garter stitch alot, and I can get behind stripes in certain circumstances, but I still wasn't on board with this pattern.

Then I saw, not one, but two in person. First Brenda's (which she talked about in length on a recent podcast), which is just the perfect combination of autumnal colors. Then there was Jane's, which I sat next to over the entire P3 weekend, and lusted after. So at the P3 marketplace on Sunday afternoon, I fell down hard at Countess Ablaze's booth and ended up with these lovelies,

and I cast on my own Color Infection. Things did not go swimmingly at first, as I forgot the trick of doing a YO between the first two stitches of every row to ease the edging a bit. I ripped back most of section 1 to fix that.

I'm now 7 repeats into section 2 and looking forward to adding in "Only When Invited" for section 3. And I'm plotting the colors for my next one, of course...because this pattern is contagious.

Neglected FOs

OK, school has started, some of the school run bugs have been worked out, and I suddenly have a bunch of hours in my day when I'm not being called upon to feed anyone or read books or mediate in the latest round of she-took-my-toy-she-touched-me-she's-looking-at-me! There are a number of things that I finished up over the summer but never blogged about, which does tend to make me feel like they're not actually really finished.

Up first, Lady Stark's Clapotis.


So named because of the colorway of the fiber.

Yarn: handspun BFL/silk from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club (July 2011 offering), colorway "Night Gathers" (Thank you GRRM!), 460 yds of DK/sport/fingering weight singles (8 oz).
Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm, I think. I forgot to put that little detail into my project page on Ravelry, and I finished the darn thing three months ago, so I have no idea.
Start/finish: 17 May - 3 June 2012.
Comments/mods: this is the second time I've knit this pattern. The first time (also in handspun) I did some mods as recommended by the intarwebs (i.e. knitting the first and last stitch of each stockinette band through the back loop to keep it tighter). I did a similar mod this time around, although only on the right side. I worked the increase section, weight the yarn, worked straight until I had enough (by weight) to work the decrease section, and ended up using every last inch. Mostly I spent my time hypnotized by watching the colors appear...






Is that too many pictures?

End of school = OMG panic!

Yet again, I have been surprised by the end of the school year. You'd think that, as a relatively intelligent, clearly overeducated, almost 40-year old, I would realize that if it's getting warmer out and the sun is up at 4:30 am and sets sometime after 9:00 pm, I would clue in to the fact that my kids are going to be on summer holidays soon. The panic results not from the imminent prospect of spending loads of time with my kids, but from the fact that yet again, I have neglected to plan ahead on teacher gifts, and I am looking at trying to knit six shawls in three weeks again.

Actually, this year I am bowing to inevitability, a bit of laziness and the need to keep some sort of grasp on my sanity over the next few months, and only making presents for the girls' main teachers (each has a main teacher and 1-2 assistants). And I'm not knitting.

Now that you've recovered from that last breathtaking statement, rest assured that there are wooly presents in the offing. I spent the weekend spinning up some Porpoise Fur.


These are two practice dyelots from last summer, Xylene Cyanole and Coomassie Blue, both on Targhee. I spun the singles at a much thicker wpi then my usual default; I want to take advantage of Targhee's tendency to expand dramatically after washing, so I aimed for a worsted weight 2-ply.

I haven't spun Targhee in a while, and I really enjoyed it - so springy and soft!  Singles were spun at 9.25:1 and plied at 6.5:1. Today, when I get home, I'm going to skein up the Coomassie Blue (XC is already off the bobbin), figure out the yardage, skipping the yarn finishing step (! - I love this about weaving!) and start warping.

This is the CB scarf I did for Carroll a couple of months ago, using BFL. I'm going to use the same weft yarn (some pale blue light fingering wool recycled from a Goodwill sweater and dyed with same dyes as the fiber), so that picture is probably fairly representative of what the finished project will look. For the turquoise, I'll use the same weft as well, although in the undyed state. I'm thinking about dyeing that as well, but I will probably try it without first to see how it looks.

So...four days to the start of the Tour de Fleece, and I need to weave two scarves, post a shop update and finish washing my fleece. Good thing Himself is away this week - I can take over the entire ground floor of the house with wool!

FF: Bad porpoise, no cookie

I have been very, very bad. I probably need to be punished severely. You be the judge.

You see, for the first time, I have real-live, actually-has-a-deadline, secret knitting for people other then myself that needs to be done. Two projects even. And yesterday, I had set aside a load of time to finish off one, finish writing the pattern, proofread, get things packed up for the postoffice, etc. And instead I tranformed this

into this,

and then into this.

Yet another Lacy Baktus, this one done in Spunky Eclectic Falkland in "Change", bulky weight, 108 yds, US size 13/9.0 mm needles. In my efforts to use up all the yarnz I got a little overzealous, and ran out on the decreasing end. So it's not symmetrical. Big effing deal. It's squooshy and warm, perfect for a little neck kerchief type thingie next autumn.

Now...back to the secret knitting.

What the...?

This winter has been fairly mild in London, mild enough that the daffodils have started poking out of the ground, and snowdrops have made their appearance. That mildness came to a crashing halt this week (snow shower on Tuesday? Really?), and culminated in the dire information that it was -4 degrees Celsius this morning when we woke up.

Now, those of you living in places with actual winter (I'm looking at you Chicago!) are saying "Minus 4 degrees? Pah! (after quick Google conversion) That's only 25 Farenheit! You're not even below zero. Suck it up cupcake!" Please grant me a bit of leeway, seeing as how I've spent the last 22 years not living in New England, and indeed almost 9 of those years living in southern Arizona and Texas. In any event, it was freaking cold. It made it very difficult to get out of bed, but getting out the door was easier because I had a new snuggly scarf to hide in.

Yet another Lacy Baktus, this time using some Finn handspun in "Shaking Leaves".

This is one of the few times I've ever spun a yarn for a specific project. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make this scarf from these colors, so I split up the yarn so that I would get more-or-less even width stripes across the entire length of the scarf. I started off, and things were going well...

Stripes are looking good so far. I knit to the middle of the scarf (by weight) and started the decreases. As I got closer and closer to the end, I started thinking that perhaps I hadn't been spinning as evenly as I might have hoped - the yarn was thinner, and there seemed to be alot left in the ball. I got to the end and had a big chunk of yarn left - riiiiip. Back to the middle, knit up half of the leftover yarn length, then start decreases. Rinse, repeat.

Finally I ended up using up most of the yarn,

but the even stripes thing? Not so much...

Bah!

I am comforted by the fact that no one will ever notice this except me (unless I point it out), and by the incredibly warm squishy goodness around my neck. Since I'm off to go take a bunch of photos outside today, this should help!

Technical details: more details on spinning the yarn are here. I used US 8/5.0 mm needles.

Borough Market Scarf

This pattern is the third of four in a collection, but it's the most recent design, and easily the fastest from idea to completion.

Worked lengthwise, the scarf starts with a long cast on. Then the lace border is knit, after which the scarf is shaped into a gentle curve using short rows in the stockinette section. It can be worn as a narrow shawlette or wrapped a couple times around the neck for extra warmth.

The pattern includes both written and charted directions, at a gauge of 18 sts/24 rows per 4 inches. Worked in worsted weight yarn (approximately 430 yards/395 meters), this scarf works up really quickly - my prototype took me three evenings worth of knitting - so it's perfect if you need a last minute gift for the holidays.

I borrowed a technique from Cat Bordhi for hiding the wraps in the stockinette short rows, and the pattern includes a photo tutorial to aid you in the process.

Many thanks to Lotz, tlpearce82 and lazylibran in the Ravelry Free Pattern Testers group for speedy and careful test knitting. 

Borough Market Scarf
$5.00

The last day of school

And the teacher gifts are finished. Blocked even. I have got to start doing this earlier next year!

Patterns: Lacy Karius, Lacy Baktus, Mezquita Shawl (from left to right)
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Aguas (which is mostly green), Cote d'Azure and Playa (again left to right), less then a full skein for each
Needles: US: 3/3.25 mm, US 2/2.75 mm and US 5/3.75 mm.
Start/finish: 6 June - 27 June, 5 June - 1 July, and 2 July - 4 July
Comments/mods: I started off with the middle scarf, but then thought the variegation of the yarn might look better in the stockinette version (Karius), so I started the left hand scarf and finished it first.

I worked the first and last stitch of every row in garter, hoping to keep it from curling too much, and after blocking it seemed ok. I love the drape of the yarn in stockinette at a larger gauge. I also love this colorway - I'm desperate for a sweater in this yarn, but as the rotational speed of the Earth has not yet slowed, I'm kind of out of luck for the immediate future.

When I went back to the garter stitch version (Baktus), I had more done then I remembered, so I kept on in garter stitch. And it works quite well too, although next time I think I would use a US 3/3.25 mm needle instead of the US 2/2.75 that I started with.

By scarf 3, I was tired of the Baktus/Karius deal, so I found a lovely shawl pattern with a construction similar to the pattern I used for last year's teacher gifts. I cast on with a needle 3 sizes smaller then called for, and the scarf was still going to be monstrous (and take forever!), so I cut the number of repeats almost in half - from 36 down to 20. I should have done something in the middle - maybe 27 - because this mini version is really mini. Blocked out, it sits very nicely over my shoulders, but there isn't really enough extra to wrap loosely. I'm hoping the fact that the recipient is smaller then me will help that problem.

Right, now that the pesky deadline knitting is done with, it's back to the spinning wheel! WIth assistance from my little buddy of course...

Admitting defeat in the face of ridiculous odds

Not surprisingly, after the amount of time I spent not knitting this month, my June socks are not going to be done. Sad day. In fact, as of June 21st, they looked like this:

Which is not all that different from how they looked on June 10th, on my way to John O'Groats.

Oh well, such is life. Recent knitting time has been taken up with teacher gifties - numero uno (which is actually the second one I started) will be finished tonight,

which will let me get back to numero dos, which is about one third done. I'm hoping that garter stitch goes faster then stockinette on this one. The socks will just have to wait for July, and having one sock almost done will hopefully make up for the fact that the Tour de Fleece starts (gulp) this weekend!

Deadline knitting begun

I've started the first school scarf of the year - this one is for Dev's Year 1 teacher. After some debate, I chose Lacy Baktus as this year's semi-mindless project. It's a great pattern, but I'm not totally sold on Malabrigo Sock in garter stitch. Or maybe its that I think the garter stitch isn't quite drapey enough for what I had in mind. In any event, the next one might have to be the stockinette version. Onward!

Another Christmas FO: Baktus

It's been all-handspun knitting, all the time here in the Porpoise household. The next lovely holiday item to show you is my first Baktus.

Pattern: Baktus scarf by Strikkelise
Yarn: handspun 18 micron merino from Hello Yarn, colorway Maldives, details on the spinning here and here. Guess it didn't end up as Girl Mittens after all...
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm
Start/finish: 5 Dec-8 Dec 2010
Comments/mods: There are some patterns that are perfect for handspun yarn, and I'm beginning to suspect that anything in garter stitch is a good candidate. This incredibly easy scarf/shawlette is designed so you can use every last inch of yarn - my Inner Puritan (TM) approves of such efficiency and thriftiness. You weigh the yarn when you start, begin increasing and keep going until the scarf is the width/size you want or you've used up half the yarn (by weight). Then you decrease, ideally ending up by casting off with only a few inches left over.

However, utilizing handspun throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the works, particularly if you are using two skeins that were spun at different times, with different grists. Like me. Ooops!

 

Skein 1, spun first, 886 ypp, 155 yds. Skein 2, spun several months later, 1427 ypp, 214 yds. Riiiiiiiiight... Apparently I split the top in half lengthwise, because the color sequences more or less matched. Both were chain plied. I started with the lighter weight yarn (Skein 2), and merrily knit my way along for 184 yds (155+214/2=184.5) and then started with Skein 1. I was probably halfway through the decrease section when I realized that a) I was going to have leftover yarn and b) the stripes weren't matching very well.

Dilemma...if I knit more increases with Skein 2, I would use up more yarn, but not know when I needed to start decreasing. But...if I started knitting with Skein 1 from the beginning again, I would end up with two pieces that would mostly match stripe-wise that I could then graft together in the middle.

Garter stitch grafting requires cider

I knit up all 155 yds of Skein 1, counted the number of stitches I had, ripped back on the first piece (Skein 2) and increased to the same number of stitches - I then worked straight in garter stitch without increasing until I had a couple of yards left. I grafted in garter stitch using the directions from this article on Knitty.com. The result?

Tiny amounts of leftovers that even I can't justify holding on to. Saweet. I was hoping the difference in grist wasn't going to be very noticeable, but it is. Thankfully one side is nice and drapey, and the other is cushy and cuddly. So one side can go up against the face/neck, and the other can drape tastefully over a coat. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...

This beauty started off as a gift for my Dad, but then I thought that maybe our recent late night back porch visitor might like it. It is now destined for someone else in the States (sorry Dad, but it was calling someone else's name). I think I'm going to end up spending a metric crapton at the post office next week, with at least three parcels of knitted goodness to fling westward. I hope Royal Mail is up to the challenge!

Current Xmas 2010 list countdown:
Presents to be knit (total): 13 (two of which aren't due until January), so 11 by 25 December.
Presents now finished: 5, with 2 more about to be finished this weekend.
Total remaining in the next 15 days: 4-6, two of which need to be mailed to the USA. One of the others definitely won't be done (my husband's lovely Aran sweater. Hopefully he'll forgive me). The rest? I'm crossing my fingers...